Josef Čapek

1887 - 1945

Josef Čapek was as a painter inspired by the Cubism period, which he recast in a distinctive way in his artwork. Even his specific handwriting is included on numerous illustrations, book covers and scenic designs. He virtuously narrated the story about a dog and a cat to children. The breadth of his engagement was remarkable. At the beginning, he created part of his literary artwork together with his brother Karel. Josef was an introvert, at the time of his masterwork focused on the depth of the human core. His poems from a concentration camp, the last part of his work, was fortunately preserved thanks to a few fellow cellmates. Josef’s tragic destiny is far beyond comprehension. (Aleš Fetters)

Josef Čapek By date

1887 1887 - 23.3. born in Hronov
1890 1890 - family moves to their own house in Úpice
1892 - 1897 1892 - 1897 - attends a local common school in Úpice
1897 - 1900 1897 - 1900 - attends a local burgeois school in Úpice
1900 1900 - lives in Žacléř to become familiar with the German language
1901 - 1903 1901 - 1903 - studies at a German professional weaving school in Vrchlabí
1903 1903 - works in Úpice as a laborer in Mr. F. M. Oberlander’s weaving mill
1903 - 1910 1903 - 1910 - studies at the School of Applied Arts in Prague with Professor E. Dítě and Professor K. Mašek
1907 1907 - family moves to Prague
1910 1910 - meets Jarmila Pospíšilová, his future wife, goes across Germany to Paris
1911 1911 - travels alone around Spain
1918 1918 - becomes the editor of the Prague satirical magazine called Nebojsa, enters the editorial board of the National Journal (Národní listy)
1919 1919 - 3.5. married Jarmila Pospíšilová
1921 - 1939 1921 - 1939 - is the editor at the Prague editorial office of People’s News (Lidové noviny)
1923 1923 - 30.4. birth of daughter Alena (died in 1971)
1938 1938 - April to May – trip to U.S.S.R. with the writers J. Kopta and M. Majerová
1939 1939 - 1.9. is arrested in Želiva and transferred to prison in Pankrác, Prague; 9th of September is transferred to the Dachau Concentration Camp; 26th of September is transferred to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp
1942 1942 - 26th of June is transferred to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp
1945 1945 - 25th of February is transferred to the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in Lower Saxony. The last report on his life is from the 4th of April. He died apparently as a consequence of typhus. The date of his death and location of his grave are unknown.

1887 1945

Selected artwork stories theatrical plays novels fairytales

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Full list of works

1917 Lélio The main characters in the collection of stories called ”Lelio“ are abandoned individuals who are not only cast out from the world, but also from their own lives. Simultaneously these individuals are being manipulated by some kind of a higher power, which, on one hand, might represent destiny and a general evil, and, on the other hand, might represent God.

1920 The Humblest Art The way the art of the city and its folklore are desribed shows the magnitude of Čapek’s personality. Čapek doesn’t see the world of galleries as the only “truth“ and ”reality,“ but with his book, he points out that honesty and creativity are much closer than they seem.

1921 From the Life of Insects (theatrical play with Karel Čapek) In the play, the Čapeks form loosely coupled images and develop scenes where insects appear personifying moral concepts like greed, virtue, selfishness... The figure Wanderer (created by Josef Čapek), a mature and well-experienced human, wanders through individual scenes and, from his initial passive observation, gradually starts to actively intervene with the insects‘ lives. It is a contrast to the world of looters and, at the same time, it bears significance to the nature of the cycle of life, representing a call for a life filled with humanity while standing face to face with death.

1923 Country of Many Names The play is set into the environment of a big, modern city. It is mainly a demonstration of how impossible it is to put aside the old, strict inconsistency of the capitalist society, which is strongly accentuated throughout the play, and somehow be able to build up a new, happy and joyful life from the very beginning: people in the thus far undetermined sphere (the land that emerged from the sea) inevitably bring their diverse and often antagonistic interests, aspirations and desires.

1927 Adam the Creator (theatrical play with Karel Čapek) Adam, an unacknowledged philosopher and inventor, destroys the world using a cannon of negation, and for that he is punished by God who orders him to create a new human kind. In his work, the author shows the absurdity of extreme revolutionism, which refutes values without being able to create new values. The concept of the play was overly filled with thesis to truly interest its spectators.

1928 Whatever It is a selection of short essays that is not thematicly limited. In his essays, the author reacts to various themes, from an accident during the manufacturing of gas to a common slipping on the street. ”Whatever“ is the only selection from the author’s journalism which came out of his life and thus somehow represents important or significant texts of Josef Čapek.

1929 Tales About A Dog and A Cat This tale, a cheerful story about two inseparable friends, has already brought joy to several generations of readers. Already now grandparents in today’s generation, as children they used to read about how the dog and the cat were washing the floor and baking a cake, and how the dog tore up his trousers, and the cat sewed them up with a night crawler.

1930 The Shadow of the Fern It is a ballad about two poachers hiding in the Šumava forests after they murdered a forester. Gradually they are becoming conscientious, and they don’t fit in either the world of orderly people or the world of nature. Eventually one of them is shot dead by officers, and the other one commits suicide. The book was awarded the annual state award in 1931.

1936 Limping Pilgrim (What I Have Seen in the World) The author, throughout his short texts, poems and apocrypha, touches the very essence of human existence and life and ponders what is the purpose of human existence and the entire world. In addition to these questions, the answers give a feeling of deep, existential anguish and persistent, eternal doubt. Additionally, they contemplate concrete aspects of life: work, sleep, love towards a woman and a child...

1946 Poems from a Concentration Camp Josef Čapek was one of the first intellectuals arrested by the gestapo after German occupation in 1939. He went through four concentration camps when, right before the end of the Second World War, he died in Bergen-Belsen. Inside the camps, Josef Čapek began to write poetry for the first time in his life. It was published post-mortem in 1946 by the poet Vladimír Holan. The poems arise from concrete experiences and even from memories, and they are pointed at an existential reflexion of destiny of a human surrendered to the power of evil. Verses are distant from optimistic pathos and are rhetoric.

1947 Writen in the Clouds The book has a deep connection to its time and also to a human being in the present time. Behind the lines, the book seems like a constantly unwinding film filled with action from the era of European dusk during the pre-war years which is fading into the writer’s thoughts and conscience. The death of T. G. Masaryk, September 1938, Munich, the Post-Munich Republic, the death of brother Karel – they are at least some of the events whereby under painful pressure were written unforgettable sentences of warning, love and worry about the nation and pure, just and liberal life.

Josef Čapek Artwork

1907 1907 - first preserved drawings and the oil painting In the Garden (V zahradě)
1908 1908 - first graphic attempts
1910 1910 - paints the oil painting Kinský’s Garden (Kinského zahrada)
1911 1911 - paints Mother Brushing a Child (Matka česající dítě)
1912 1912 - paints the first Cubist paintings
1913 1913 paints Cubist Heads (Hlavy), Figures (Postavy}, The First Drunkard (Piják), Harmonicist (Harmonikář) and Sailor (Námořník)
1914 1914 - paints Head of a Man (Hlava muže)
1915 1915 - the painting Head of a Man in a Hat (Hlava muže v klobouku)
1916 1916 - paintings of girls
1917 1917 - the paintings Sailors (Námořníci) and Harlots (Nevěstky). Begins correspondence with Bohuslav Reynek.
1918 1918 - finishes the painting Beggar Woman with a Child (Žebračka s dítětem), ”The Album of Ten Graphic Sheets“ (Album deseti grafických listů) is published
1919 1919 - paints Drunkards (Pijáci), publishes the second album ”Linoleum Set of Eight“ (Osmero linoleí). Between 1919 – 1938, he illustrated 35 books and created more than 500 book covers.
1920 1920 - the paintings Mr. Mysrelf and Black King (Černošský král)
1921 1921 - the paintings Man with a Chest (Muž s bednou) and Still Life (Zátiší). Between 1921 – 1932, he created scenic and costume designs for 60 theatrical plays.
1922 1922 - paints landscapes and children’s motifs
1923 1923 - beginning of the so-called period of ”men“
1927 1927 - paints the picture Wooden Man (Dřevěný muž)
1930 1930 - paints Flower Girl (Květinářka) and Children with Violets (Děti s fialkami)
1933 1933 - paints the pictures Cloud (Mrak) and Oravanians (Oravanky)
1934 1934 - the paintings Daisies (Kopretiny) and Flowers (Květiny)
1936 1936 - the paintings Violets (Fialky) and Flower Saleswoman (Prodavačka květin)
1937 1937 - finishes paintings from the series Nights (Noci) and the paintings Fishermen (Rybáři), Little Fire (Ohníček) and Heaviness (Těžko). Draws the series Dictator’s Shoes (Diktátorské boty)
1938 1938 - draws the political drawing Deserted, Robbed, but Unbroken (Opuštěna, oloupena, ale nezlomena). Begins drawing and painting the series Fire (Oheň) (a few hundred drawings, 50 paintings)
1939 1939 - draws and paints the series Desire (Touha)
1942 1942 - small drawings and oil paintings

1907 1942

It is a wonderful region, that region of Svatoňovice, Odolov, Markoušovice and everything else that is around the Hawk Mountains (Jestřebí hory) and Žaltman, and those fossils, the petrified leftovers of ancient nature, are offering even more curiosity to it … If we say ”ours“ and ”at our place,“ it means that it is different and that elsewhere isn’t quite like it, and that something essential is missing in it. It is native, something that we obviously, and based on very powerful inner reasoning, sometimes like to hold on to. (Josef Čapek

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Film Adaptations (0)

From his literary work, we firstly have to mention the one that is surely the most popular – ”Tales about A Dog and A Cat.“ Generations of children have seen this series as their bedtime fairytale. The bedtime fairytale series from 1950 had six episodes and was directed by Eduard Hofman.

Tales about A Dog and A Cat:https://www.csfd.cz/film/177376-povidani-o-pejskovi-a-kocicce/komentare/

The director Jan Matějovský undertook a television adaptation of the play ”From the Life of Insects“ (Ze života hmyzu) in 1973. Even names like Viktor Preiss, Ilja Prachař or Petr Čepek can be found in the casting.

A television film adaptation from the short story ”The Shadow of the Fern“ (Stín kapradiny) was shot in 1984. The director Karel Vláčil took charge of the film and with the assistance of Vladimír Kröner, they wrote the script. The music was composed by Jiří F. Svoboda.

The Shadow of the Fern:https://www.csfd.cz/film/9352-stin-kapradiny/prehled/

During the same year, Věra Jordánová directed the fairytale A Fat Grandpa. Even the Lotrando robber character, also known from the fairytales of Josef’s brother Karel, appears in the fairytale.

A Fat Grandpa:https://www.csfd.cz/film/229405-tlusty-pradedecek/prehled/

Other parts of Josef’s artwork were book illustrations, scenography, theatrical plays, reflections, essays and a number of poems. Similar to his brother Karel, Josef was also recognized as a columnist and a journalist.